


No Evil

by kattybats



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Ableism, Angst, Blind Character, Deaf Character, Depression, Gen, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Muteness, Nightmares, Nonverbal Communication, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, codependent dwarves, dwarven cuddle pile, slightly graphic depictions of facial injuries, this will have a happy ending i swear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 15:17:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1309546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattybats/pseuds/kattybats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the Battle of Five Armies, the House of Durin adapts and learns how to live again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Thorin feels the door in front of him and knocks on it. From within comes two more knocks, and he opens the door and steps inside.

As he closes the door there are no words of greeting, but again the sound of a knock on wood, and Thorin carefully makes his way over to where Kili is sitting at his desk. “What are you doing?" 

Kili's hands find their way into Thorin's and he feels the iglishmek form. _Writing to Amad_.

“She'll be home soon.”

 _I know_.

* * *

Thorin continues to eat as he hears his nephews' cutlery go still and their sleeves shift. The silent conversation goes on for a good several minutes, and Thorin tries not to wonder what their topic is. The boys had decided early on that it was better to leave Thorin in the dark during such times, instead of causing him confusion with only Fili's half.

It occurs to him then that he and his eldest nephew will be unlikely to ever understand the same words again.

“Uncle?” Fili finally asks.

Thorin sets down his silverware and signs, _Yes?_

“Kili and I would like to go on a hunting trip.”

 _Of course. I'm sure you can find a few guards willing_ -

“Alone,” Fili says, and Thorin's hands still.

His hands almost physically hurt as he makes the sign, _No_ . He can hear Kili forget and start angrily signing, but perhaps the words are not meant for him because his hands are not stopped by either brother. _It is too dangerous_ , Thorin explains. _What if you are separated? What if Kili is trapped somewhere and cannot call for help? What if something decides to hunt_ _ you _ _and you do not_... his fingers jitter to a halt. Fili does not need the reminder. He was the only one who had had hope of recovery, but as time passed that hope had died a bitter death, not going gently.

Someone pushes out their chair, and then Kili's hands are in his. _Please_.

Thorin bites his lip, tongue running over one of the scars. _You must promise to be_ _ careful_ _. Very, very_ _ careful_.

He hears Fili push his own chair out and then both his nephews are hugging him. “We promise,” Fili says. Thorin cannot read Kili's fingers pressed against his chest, but the meaning their movement makes is clear.

* * *

Thorin remembers when he realized, still bedridden, that he would never smith again. His body had ached and his face had ached and he could not so much as crack his lips open without pain. He was helpless, strapped to the bed so he would not paw at his wounds. He could not see the scars his nephews undoubtedly carried as a result of his folly, though he felt their effects well enough. Felt them in his hands as Kili's fingers made words, heard them in Fili's voice as yet another day passed and his hearing did not improve.

He had lain there, frustrated at the world, frustrated at himself, and thought of taking hammer to hot metal and pounding out his anger, his fear, his disappointment in himself. And then he realized what his injuries truly meant, what lingering effects they would have. And he could not even cry for what he had lost for he had no eyes to cry from. He was suddenly glad, for he would not have to see the looks people gave him at the sight of his ruined face, the crisscrossing scars and the two gaping holes.

He tried to remember what the last thing he'd created was, and couldn't, and fell into a restless sleep. He dreamed he had picked up the hammer even in blindness and struck at the metal, and missed. He struck again and again, and missed again and again. He did not stop, even as he heard his nephews screaming as he hit them instead, heard the splatter of their blood and the crack of their bones and the squish of their brain matter, still screaming even beyond death.

* * *

Thorin had been dreading the visit from the Ironfist diplomats, and so far it is going about as badly as he had feared. To make things worse, it seems they had sent their oldest, most traditionalist dwarves. Which, for the Ironfists, was saying a lot.

He does not need to see to know that they are not signing everything they say as they had been requested. He knows of at least two instances when Balin had intercepted a piece of paper headed his way, and a third intercepted by Fili. Undoubtedly there are more that he didn't notice. You are the king of Erebor, he reminds himself as he tries to subtly rub at his forehead. They can do nothing to you. These tiny aggressions are just them being petty.

Then Fili speaks up, interrupting one of the diplomats. “You would outright ignore a prince of Erebor?” Thorin tries desperately not to groan, realizing what must have happened. He prays to Mahal that they can get through the visit with no one losing their temper.

“What kind of prince of Erebor cannot make himself heard by his people?” the diplomat asks, sneer audible. Thorin does not hold back his sigh as he hears two chairs being knocked backwards as his nephews leap across the table, consoling himself with the thought that at least Fili's lip-reading seems to be getting better.

* * *

Thorin's face does not stretch as it did before. Every movement pulls on some bit of scar tissue or another. He cannot frown as he once did, which Dis assures him is an improvement, but he also knows that his smile is crooked and that fully half of an eyebrow has struggled to grow back over the marks.

He knows this because he wakes in the night, terror lodged in his throat and fingers scrabbling over his face, over his eyelids. He thinks it is probably a miracle that he healed as well as he did, that he did not pull out stitches until there was nothing left to sew, until his eyelids were shredded beyond hope of recovery. The healers had cut away the edges and stitched them together like a doll made to look like it was sleeping, to hide the fact that there was nothing behind them anymore, and every morning still he wakes and forgets and tries to open them, until he remembers.

He is not the only one who has nightmares. His nephews have been taking turns waking in the wrong bed, and half of Kili's things have ended up in Fili's room and half of Fili's things in Kili's. They sleep curled around each other in a way they haven't since they were tiny dwarflings, for if Fili screams then Kili hears it, but Kili cannot scream and even if he could Fili cannot hear it. Thorin knows it is only the stubbornness of dwarves that has them keeping two separate rooms.

Thorin wakes one night to the sound of someone knocking on then opening his door. “Yes?” he mumbles sleepily, and pulls himself awake when he hears two knocks on the now shut door. He pushes himself up as Kili crosses the room and sets something on the table next to his bed before sitting down on the edge and placing his hands in Thorin's.

 _Fili is in the Iron Hills_ , he signs, and Thorin nods because he knows this, but then Kili moves one of Thorin's hands to his upper arm. There is a long scratch there, not bleeding but Thorin can feel the red, angry broken skin and knows what must have happened, knows what Kili wants.

Thorin scoots over in the large bed and moves back the covers. “Come.”

 _Thank you_ , Kili signs in his hand, and Thorin hears him lifting the glass from an oil lamp and blowing out the wick before settling down next to him.

* * *

Thorin wakes with someone straddling his chest and holding his wrists, his cheek stinging slightly. He fights to free his wrists and the other dwarf struggles to keep holding him down, and then Thorin remembers that Kili had been in the bed with him. “Kili?” he asks, and gets a gentle squeeze on the wrist. Thorin smiles, hopefully softly, definitely crookedly, and says, “Thank you,” and Kili squeezes his wrist again before climbing off him and moving to straighten the blankets. Thorin thinks of Fili, off in the Iron Hills, and wonders how he fares this night.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS for this chapter: extreme depression, hitting absolute rock bottom, brief mention of suicide, threat of self-mutilation. Because this chapter takes place before the first, and Fili is pretty fucked up before he accepts his disability.

The silence is deafening. Except when it isn't. 

His head is a constant dull throb. It is a rare occurrence that the ache retreats, but becoming more common as the days pass. He tries not to think about how hard he must have hit it. Dwarven bones are notoriously hard to break, and the fact that he managed to fracture his skull says nothing good.

Sometimes he hears a high-pitched whining in his head, and he knows it isn't real but it's still better than the nothingness that's been there since he woke up. At first he tried to imagine people's voices as he watched their iglishmek. This lasted until Dain came to see him. Fili had never met the older dwarf before, and so had no voice to give him. He tried to form one for Dain in his mind, but his head hurt something awful and he could not think straight. In the end Dain could tell that his head was hurting him and so simply wished him a swift recovery and left the tent. Fili spent the rest of the day thinking of every voice he'd ever heard, trying desperately not to forget them.

A week after he woke, Oin signs to him, _Any improvements?_

“No,” Fili answers. It still feels weird to speak, to feel his throat vibrating and the air passing through his diaphragm but to not be able to hear what comes out.

_The longer this goes on, the less chance there will be of a recovery_.

Fili tries not to glare at Oin. He knows the old healer had to say it, even though he's wrong. “It will come back. You'll see.”

* * *

The first time Bilbo comes to visit him, it quickly becomes apparent that no one told him of the effects of Fili's head injury. The halfling smiles broadly, talking silently, lips moving so fast even someone with practice lip-reading could not hope to follow. He puts his hand up to stop Bilbo. “Stop. I have no idea what you're saying.” 

Bilbo frowns at him and _keeps talking_. “Stop!” Fili nearly shouts at him, or does shout at him; he can't tell. “It's not that your words don't make sense. It's that I can't hear them.”

Bilbo gives him an awful look and says, very slowly, _I'm so sorry_.

“It's just temporary,” Fili assures him, because he hates the look Bilbo is still giving him and never wants to see it again.

* * *

Fili sits by his uncle's bedside, watching Thorin's stiff iglishmek. It is better than looking at his face, covered almost entirely by bandages as it is. Fili cannot imagine how much pain he must be in. The healers couldn't tell from the marks what mauled him, warg or blade or both. Fili remembers when Oin told him about his uncle's wounds. His last act of naïvety had been to comment that surely a warg wouldn't have cut out Thorin's eyes, to which Oin had responded that they hadn't, Thorin's eyes had been destroyed and it had been the healers themselves who cut out the remains. 

Thorin's iglishmek always takes a while to warm up after his hands are freed. There is too much to do for someone to sit at his side as he dozes so unless he needs them his hands are bound at his side, where they can do no harm to his healing wounds. _And how do the negotiations go?_ Thorin is asking, fingers stuttering as he nearly uses the wrong form of 'go'.

“They are... well,” Fili settles on. “Dain is being extremely helpful. He's doing most of the work, really.” Fili can hear Thorin's disappointed reproach even as his fingers twitch into action, and Fili finds his own hands holding Thorin's still. “ _Don't_ ,” he hisses. “You are not there, you do not see-” and Fili chokes on his own words. He takes a deep breath. “They treat me like an invalid. Like I've gone soft in the head. It is not my choice that Dain takes the lead.”

Though, Fili admits to himself, perhaps he has gone soft in the head. He still gets awful migraines, the kind so bad he gets dizzy and nauseous, and while his balance has improved from nearly falling flat on his face the first time he stood from his sickbed he still finds himself wobbling at times. He still can't hear anything but the occasional phantom sound. He pulls his hands from Thorin's and says instead, “When my hearing comes back I'm going to spend an entire day sitting outside listening to the birds and the wind.”

The bandages on Thorin's face twitch briefly as he forgets himself for a moment and tries to make an expression. Fili tells himself that the aborted movement would've been a smile.

* * *

Kili sits next to Fili in the negotiations, hands almost constantly moving as he translates the words of the men and the elves for him. Dain or Balin or some other dwarf could do it easily enough, but Fili wants Kili at his side. Kili still has another three years to go before he is considered of age, and this is the only way he is allowed to attend. 

His throat looks much better than it did in the days directly after the battle. Fili knows that it had been close. He had watched Kili in the cot next to him struggle to breathe, neck swollen and bruised from getting crushed so violently. It was painful to witness but he couldn't look away, unable to hear the loud, wheezing sounds that indicated his brother had not suffocated yet. His chest had shuddered as it battled for air despite broken ribs. Finally an elf had come and put a scalpel to his brother's throat while Oin shouted something at them. After the elf had left and Kili's chest had stopped heaving so violently, Oin had made sure that Kili couldn't see his hands before signing that the elf was crazy and that Kili may be breathing easier now but if the cut made by the elf got infected then he would die.

It hadn't, and now all that remains is an angry red line of mostly-healed skin. Still, when Kili is not moving Fili watches his chest, making sure that he is still breathing. Fili tells himself that he is not clinging, but he knows that that is a lie. He doesn't know if he will ever stop clinging. Maybe when he can hear Kili breathing again, when he can hear Kili's voice telling him he's fine, he's all right, he's right there, not suffocating, not dead.

* * *

Fili sees Kili signing to Dwalin from afar and-

The world tilts.

* * *

There is a sickness lodged deep in Fili's chest. It's tight and heaving. He feels frozen in time, staring into the middle ground where Kili had stood moments before. Fili had asked Kili why he was signing when he didn't have to and-and and... and.

No one had told him.

Fili needs to get away.

* * *

He watches the clumps of ragged grass around him on the mountainside rustle in the wind. It's silent for now. Someday it won't be.

Fili shouldn't be up here. He has things to do. He has to... something. He has to do something. He can't leave it at Kili and himself running away from each other after he fucked up so abominably. Decision made he stands up, but he sways dangerously and sits right back down before he can crack his still-fragile head on a rock.

The world feels funny-bad-funny in a wayithadn'tbefore-

* * *

Fili surfaces again slowly. Eventually he becomes away that he's lying in one of the few tents that remain outside Erebor. Someone is sitting at his side. It's Kili. His eyes are red. 

“I'm sorry,” he says, and then Kili is hugging him tightly.

_You had a fit_ , he signs after he pulls away. _I went to go find you and they said you went that way but when I got close you suddenly started twitching and_ -

“I'm sorry,” Fili says again.

_Not your fault_.

Kili leaves and returns with Oin. _Nothing to worry about_ , the older dwarf assures him. _If you have another one it might be a problem, but it's not uncommon to have one after an injury like yours. Once you're feeling up to it Kili will help you back into the mountain. You're under strict orders of bed rest for two days. I don't want to see you up and about before that._

Fili nods and sets about trying to sit up without the world spinning.

* * *

On the second day, somehow his bedding comes apart completely and is spread all over the chamber he shares with Kili, Dwalin, and Balin. Somehow. He has no idea how it happened.

(That's a lie.)

Kili comes in, looks at the disaster he's made, and probably sighs. Fili can't tell, but it seems likely. _What's wrong?_ he signs, and Fili hears it in his head because that's the only place he'll ever hear his brother's voice again. Kili gets ignored. Their standoff continues as something ugly builds up within Fili until he is full to bursting and spinning and winding-

Kili catches his fist before it can hit the stone wall. His brother is frowning and jerks the arm ungently and Fili finds himself sitting on his bare mattress with Kili beside him. His fingers stutter between the beginnings of signs, trying to figure out what to say. _Are you angry?_ he finally settles on.

Fili finds himself signing back instead of speaking. _Yes._

_Are you sad?_

_Yes._

_Why are you angry and sad?_

_Because it's_ _ not fair_ _._

Kili nods. _Are you angry at someone?_

_Yes._

_Who?_

_Orcs. Thranduil. Elves, men, dwarves, me. Everybody._

_Did throwing your bed around help?_

_No. Made it worse. I think._

_I'm here for you_ , Kili signs before pulling Fili into a tight hug and rubbing his back like their mother used to do when they were dwarflings. Fili's emotions are roiling in his stomach without rhyme or reason. He doesn't cry. It's just raining inside. Somehow.

(That's a lie.)

* * *

The treaties are signed. The elves leave and the men stop bothering him. When Kili isn't around to stop him, Fili punches inanimate objects.

It doesn't help. It doesn't make it worse either. He just feels empty inside.

He sees the looks he gets. He knows they talk about him behind his back. Don't they know they can do it to his face? He's the deaf prince of Erebor. They could heap insults upon his house at the top of their lungs and he'll never know, not ever again.

(No, that's a lie. It's got to be.) 

* * *

He can feel the metal vibrating violently. He knows the sound it should be making, the clang of metal on metal, that at the force he is putting into it he should be clapping his hands over his ears. There's nothing, not even the high-pitched whining.

Suddenly there are arms around his, pinning them to his side as someone pulls the hammer out of his hand. The ruined breastplate disappears next, the tools on the stone floor around him, the copper pot, the dented helmet, everything disappears as the arms on him stay tight. He's shouting, but he doesn't know what. There's a chin on his shoulder vibrating with speech and the hands that aren't his are forming words he can't read. He won't calm down, he can't, never again-

Someone punches him. He thinks it might be Dwalin.

Next thing he knows he's not shouting anymore, kneeling on the floor with Thorin in front of him. _Fili. Fili. Stop. Please. Let us help you._

“You can't help me. I don't need help. It'll come back,” Fili bites.

_You are not the only one who has lost something._

“It'll come back,” Fili says, with less heat, not looking at his uncle's disfigured face.

Thorin raises his hands and signs not to let Fili ignore him before he's done. Then he lowers them back between the two of them. _This is not the first time I have seen something like this. You are succumbing to negative feelings more readily than you did before. It's very common after a head injury like yours. You must remember that this isn't you._

“It is now,” Fili mumbles without thinking, because he's just received confirmation of everything he's feared since he woke up in a silent world. Since the looks of the men and the elves and Bilbo and even some of the other dwarves. He's broken beyond repair.

* * *

He isn't worthy of being the heir. Not anymore. He's too damaged. Took a knock on the head and can't be trusted anymore. It's not that he's deaf. He's uncontrollable. His rage is hot and near-constant. His migraines are often debilitating. He hasn't had another fit yet, but there is still the risk that they will hound him for the rest of his life. He will never be a proper king. He cannot be Thorin's heir.

He cannot refuse Thorin. He cannot do his family the final dishonor of falling on his sword. But there is something he can do.

It's not like he'll be losing anything useful anyway.

* * *

Kili finds him before he can make the first cut. His brother's mouth opens and closes uselessly as he tries desperately to speak to him despite the worthlessness of the spoken word. Kili grabs Fili's wrist, but gently, and tries to pull the knife away from his ear. There's no give. Kili stops pulling, but does not let go either. The horrified question is loud in his eyes.

“I can't be Thorin's heir. It's the only way.” Kili shakes his head violently. “Don't you know your history? The Ironfists still did it rather recently.”

Kili shakes his head again and his free hand starts signing, but it is shaking so badly the signs can't be understood. His mouth is still moving uselessly. Fili takes it upon himself to explain. “Back in the old days, lords and kings had to epitomize perfection. The odd battle scar didn't matter of course, but all the pieces had to be there. So, when someone wanted to make sure a political rival couldn't come to power, they cut off their ears and nose.” Fili wrinkled the tip of his own nose. “Do you think I'll have to cut off my nose too? I want to do this right, but my nose still works so it seems like a bit of a waste.”

Kili's head jerks towards the door, mouth still moving, and not half a minute later it opens to reveal Balin. He drops the papers he's carrying at the sight of them and rushes forward. Kili's mouth stops moving as Balin's starts and his hands rush into action. Their meaning is lost on Fili as he realizes what must have happened and the air rushes out of his lungs.

Kili had been speaking. Shouting, loud enough for Balin to hear as he passed: _stp stp stp stp stp_. Fili drops the knife and falls to his knees, arm still held aloft by Kili.

His brother had spoken. And he could not hear it.

* * *

He's not the same person he was before the battle. He is quicker to anger and quicker to melancholy. He knows his limits, can tell, most of the time, when he can soldier on through a migraine or must excuse himself. When he doesn't, there are plenty who will tell him. Kili has invented six new signs for 'idiot' that flow easily into each other and has no qualms in using them, the sight of them becoming sounds in Fili's head. He has not had another fit, and Oin does not think he will at this point.

He will never hear the birdsong again. He will never again hear the songs of his kin, does not know the tunes of the ones composed after the battle. He cannot hear the sounds of the mines and the forges. But he hears something far more precious.

Someone has to preserve his brother's voice. And who better than Fili, who has no distractions?

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, let's try again. This story will probably be _four_ chapters.


End file.
